


Beach Evening

by greekowl87



Series: Tried and True [3]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Early MSR, F/M, MSR, Missing Scene, little green men - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 02:27:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14274924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greekowl87/pseuds/greekowl87
Summary: I don’t write much of the early seasons with MSR but this one takes place during ‘Little Green Men’ after their escape from Arecibo and before they get back to D.C. Just some early UST MSR. Sort of. Kind of. Let’s just call it early MSR.





	Beach Evening

Mulder smiled as and mumbled a heavily accented 'gracias' as he took his change and grocery back from the bodega down from the crummy seaside hotel and he and Scully found themselves in. The air was still heavy with humidity but nothing like the dense jungle in Arecibo. The sea air had taken away some of it and it made him feel a bit less suffocated. He walked the sidewalk and turned down an alley and took the stairs up to an aged three-story building. He nodded to the old man sitting at the front desk who was more interesting in the newspaper in front of him to pay attention to Mulder coming or going.

He knocked quickly on their door and called, "Scully, it's me. Are you decent?"

The blue door to the hotel room was pulled back and he saw his partner with her red hair tied back and wearing a white tank top. "Like that would stop you," she teased, "did you bring us dinner?"

He shrugged and replied, "It depends on what you call dinner." Mulder placed the bag on the small table that sat in the corner of their room. He took out a small box and opened it for her inspection. "Pinchos is what they are called."

"It's meat on a stick, Mulder. How very you."

"Don't condemn me so fast, Scully. I don't see a microwave or a McDonald's nearby." He could hear the teasing in her voice. "I got some bread to go with it and..." He paused for dramatic effect and pulled out the small bottle of rum. "Ta-da."

"Mulder!" She chuckled. "Really?"

"Why not? Let's go sit on the beach and watch the sunsets and eat our meat on a stick." He smiled boyishly at her. "Come on, Scully. You come all the way to Puerto Rico to save my ass, it's the least I can do to do to wine and dine my partner. It's better than a Watergate parking garage."

"Mulder," she sighed. "What happened to keeping a low profile? I told you that I was followed in D.C. and you are the one who insisted we take a boat back to Flordia."

"Come on, Scully, we've shared drinks before. You know I'm a good date. I'll behave."

Yes, that night, Scully thought. It went unspoken between them except for the small ‘thank you’ she had nervously given him the next morning she saw him and it was never mentioned again but she had noticed a shift in their dynamic and working partnership too, and like most things again, that went unspoken in between them too.

"Oh, come on, Scully," Mulder smiled encouragingly.

She sighed, deciding to indulge his little fantasy. "Fine," she conceded, "but only if it will shut you up for the rest of the night about playing coco cabana."

He gave a soft smile and cleverly decided to push his luck.

. . . .

On some stray beach blanket Mulder had produced, they sat eating their pinchos with two small paper cups filled with small amounts of Puerto Rican rum and a small bottle wrapped in a paper bag and coke bottle. "You know what this is missing," Scully mused, picking at the kebab stick. "Ice."

"You know, I never knew why they always served limes with rum and cokes or just call it for what it is, a cuba libre."

Scully felt the adrenaline wearing off and herself enjoying the companionable mood between them. The sunset was had just set to the slight left of them over the Atlantic sea. A rainbow of unearthly color painted the sky. The small, squashy waves were pounding the shore as high tide was rolling in and the tropical air felt refreshing since the first time since the plane had landed. "Not possible," she corrected, sipping the drink. She winced at the alcoholic burn. "The cuba libre was first thought to have in the Spanish-American war, which predates the distribution of Coca-Cola. However, in 1898, there was a variation of a drink known as a cuba libre that had water and brown sugar I believe."

Mulder just took a moment to stare at her, either impressed or questioning her insanity.

"I read a lot," she clarified as if trying to justify her answer.

"I wasn't thinking that. You really are smarter than me," he confessed with mock horror.

She let a bubbling giggle escape her chest as Mulder just grinned goofily. "Well, I have to be with the way you covered your trail. It was almost impossible to find you, Mr. Hale."

"Ah, so you know my secret identity, Mrs. Hale?" That was the first time he had said something like that but she did not know why it struck her differently. Mulder nodded back out to the ocean. "What made you come after me? We technically aren't partners."

"Maybe not in the eyes of the Bureau. I meant what I said back at the Watergate. I am worried about you. I know they have me stuck in Quantico teaching again and you stuck transcribing tapes for white collar, but I do worry. You only come to call when you need help busting a conspiracy wide open or me to save your ass."

"Well, we have proof this time, Scully, I'm positive," Mulder replied gazing back out into the ocean distantly. "It may not be the proof or answers to what happened to Samantha but it's something. The work can finally be validated. I just know it." He turned to Scully thoughtfully and squeezed her hand quickly in thanks. "And there's you."

There's me, she repeated to herself. Scully returned his gesture with a squeeze and small smile of her own. "What do you say we finish up and head back? Doesn't the boat leave before dawn tomorrow to go back to Miami and then from there we fly back to D.C?"

He nodded as he finished the last of his pincho. He wiped his hands on his jeans and nodded to their drinks. "We can finish up back and the room and watch some telenovelas. There's only one bed too, Scully." He waggled his eyebrows playfully and she scoffed in amusement.

"Sorry, the tropical island doesn't do it for me, Mulder. Sorry."

She gathered up the rest of their dinner as they trudged up the sandy beach and towards their ancient hotel. Mulder flicked on the fuzzy television as Scully headed towards the bathroom to clean up. He smiled as he shifted through the bookbag he had brought, grateful that Scully had bought him a change of clothes to wear. He slipped into a tank top and clean pair of jeans, not wanting to read more into the situation. There was only one queen bed in the room and no couch.

It had happened twice before, the whole one bed and the two of them sharing it trope where they had to share a bed on a case. Nothing had happened but after the nightmare on the Icy Cape and the moment of affirmation of their trust, other small things had started to happen instead which he tried to overlook. That went unspoken by them too. She appeared from the bathroom dressed in shorts and an oversized t-shirt, her hair pulled back into a ponytail. "What side do you want, Mulder," she asked, peeling back the covers.

Nothing else to this, he reminded himself, but poor luck in accommodations.

"Um, the left side. I know you are partial to sleeping on the right side of the bed."

She smiled gratefully. "You can pick what's on the tv."

Scully slipped beneath the light covers as Mulder got in next to her. Completely platonic, he reminded himself as he watched her turn onto her side and was asleep within minutes thanks in part to the rum they had earlier that night. He remembered falling asleep late watching a baseball game. When he awoke later, as he typically did because of his insomnia, he had found at some point in the night, Scully and nestled her sleeping self comfortably against his side with an arm and leg snaked across him. He smiled slightly. They may have taken away the work, prevented him from finding the truth, but he now just realized he had Scully. He had still had Scully. He nuzzled her hair without thinking, taking in her scent and smiling. And probably for the millionth time, he silently thanked whatever unknown forces that had brought Scully into his life.


End file.
